


Ready Now

by MyMyMadeline



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: (if you look at it that way), Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Comfort/Angst, F/M, M/M, gender neutral reader
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-24
Updated: 2019-06-24
Packaged: 2020-05-18 19:52:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19341469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyMyMadeline/pseuds/MyMyMadeline
Summary: His eyes were as soft as his gaze, surrounded by wrinkles and lines you never thought you’d see. It was an image that didn’t quite mesh in your head with that of the man who was your dearest friend and almost lover. But he couldn’t have been a stranger if he tried. It was Steve. It could only ever be Steve.-A conversation 80 years in the making, it's time to say goodbye to the man you loved and you're not sure if you're ready.





	Ready Now

**Author's Note:**

> this was written immediately after my second screening of endgame months ago but only posted now so hopefully yall arent sick of this concept or anything yet.
> 
>  
> 
> written to:
> 
> Ready Now - Dodie

Bucky rose from the bench as he finished his short conversation Steve. Maybe it was a goodbye, maybe it was a ‘see you later.’ It seemed as if no one had any real idea what this new situation meant going forward. 

You clung to Sam’s arm, the one not holding is brand new shiny shield, and rested your head on his shoulder familiarly, watching the exchange. Bucky nodded to Steve before turning a sympathetic look towards you and jerking his head in a beckoning motion. Your grip on Sam's arm tightened and you turned your nervous gaze up to his conflicted one. 

“Well. Guess it's my turn… Captain America.” You tried to joke. 

Sam shook his head softly with a small chuckle. “Not sure how I'm gonna get used to that. Now go on, it’s your turn.” He shrugged his shoulder in an attempt to dislodge you and get you to move, but you clung tight.

You looked back to the bench in, what was to Sam, very obvious hesitation. You breathed shakily, focusing on the wind in the grass, the glimmering water, the breeze through Bucky’s hair. Anything other than the strange yet familiar figure that was once and somehow still is the man you loved.

“Hey,” Sam leaned in, speaking gently into your ear. “It's just Steve. No need to be nervous.” 

“Yeah. I guess.” You sighed, regretfully releasing your tight anchoring hold on Sam. Were you ready for this conversation? No. Did you have to be? It seemed so.

Your watched your wobbling feet as they trampled through the long grass, seemingly on auto-pilot, and you willed them to stop shaking. You willed your whole body to stop shaking. Oh Jesus. What were you even going to say? 

Oh hey, Steve. Y’know it’s real funny that you’d do this now because I really thought that we had something here. But, nah, it’s all cool. I’m all cool. Yeah, I’ll just exist in a world without you. It’s not like I’ve loved you since the first moment I met you eleven whole years ago. 

No, you couldn’t just say everything you felt. The joy. The heartbreak. The anger. The love. That was too much. This was Steve’s moment, not yours. 

You felt a pat on your shoulder and your head jerked up to see Bucky passing by with his same sympathetic smile. You reached up and squeezed his hand gently, moving onward, finally taking your place next to Steve. 

Steve, who faced the lake with the most peaceful expression you’d ever seen on him. Steve, who was the kindest, most genuine man you had ever met. Steve, who you’d fallen in love with the second he shook your hand on the helicarrier all those years ago. Steve, who was now… well… old. 

He turned towards you and the world was in slow motion. Like the universe was somehow tilted and righted in the same shift. The oxygen in your lungs left with a swift stab in your gut. 

He spoke your name softly, with a smile that felt like home, and suddenly… you could breathe. 

His eyes were as soft as his gaze, surrounded by wrinkles and lines you never thought you’d see. It was an image that didn’t quite mesh in your head with that of the man who was your dearest friend and almost lover. But he couldn’t have been a stranger if he tried. It was Steve. It could only ever be Steve. 

“Hi, Steve.” 

“Why don’t you sit,” he patted the space next to him and your body acquiesced without a thought as you followed his desire. Like it always did. Like you always did.

“I… don’t even know what to say.” You laughed nervously, clasping your trembling hands together.

He hummed a gentle laugh, “Now that’s funny. Because I’ve been waiting to have this conversation for 80 years.” His voice was slow and thoughtful. It creaked and rasped in ways you never thought you’d get to hear. He must’ve noticed your speechless state because his eyes crinkled further with humour as you stared wordlessly at each other. 

You shook your head slightly with a gentle laugh, needing to escape his gaze, if only for a moment. “All for little old me? Must be important.”

“You are.” The joviality in his look was replaced with something that you couldn’t identify. But it was a look you’d seen a million times. Something between tenderness, hope, guilt, even shame. Those warring emotions in Steve were always hard to place, but they were always there. 

“I… I’m sorry.” He spoke regretfully. 

“No you’re not... and you know Steve, you don’t have to be.”

“Well, I am... and I’m not.” He nodded his head, like he confirming things to himself more than like he was agreeing with you. “I’m not sorry that I did what I did. I’m not sorry that I went back. Those years... were the best of my life.” 

You ignored the stab to the gut you felt at those words and pushed those feelings deep down. Now was not the time. “And you deserve them all.”

He smiled, almost ruefully, and nodded again. “Thank you. But… I am sorry that things never worked out between us.”

Oh. Oh. 

Maybe now was the time for those feelings.

“Steve, you-.” You clamped your trembling hand over your mouth as you barely caught a sob you didn’t even know was coming. “You don’t have to be,” you whispered. Anything more would have broken you. 

He spoke your name and you only shook your head. It was too much to hear.

“You… were everything. You were perfect. It was never your fault. I just- I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t move on. I tried. With you, I tried.” 

He did try. You thought back to all the times he really did try. When he would hold your hand when he could tell you needed it. When he’d let you crawl in his bed and you’d hold each other until the sun’s gentle rise. You held those moments and the many like them so dear to your heart. Closer to the very core of your soul were the most intimate moments you’d ever shared. Those like the few stolen kisses over the years that seemed oceans apart but were fueled by moments of passion, sometimes desperation. And one night in the empty Avengers facility, weeks after the Decimation. It was a night made of love and pain, where tears and sweat mingled, moans and sobs harmonized, and the two of you were one. 

He had tried. But he was never really there. Never really yours. Kisses were never spoken of and the morning that followed the night was one of shifted gazes and quiet rooms. He had been your rock, but he always managed to slip through your fingers like sand. 

You swallowed your cries and struggled to grab a hold of your breathing. Exhaling shakily, you attempted to speak again. “Thank you. You uh… you deserve her. God,” you sniffled wetly, but you kept smiling. “You really do. Everything about her and everything that comes with her.” You nodded, perhaps trying to show that meant every word, perhaps trying to tell yourself. You really did mean it. This conversation was never going to be about you and your own selfish feelings, but he made it that way. Maybe he was telling you that he had some of those selfish feelings too, that yours were okay, and maybe not as selfish as you’d thought. You felt like you were choking as you attempted to speak.

“I’m so happy for you. I’m just… It was never going to be me. And that’s ok.” 

He smiled sadly and held out an aged hand, his brows hitching with grief and his eyes shining wetly with tears of his own. You clasped it immediately and tightly, experiencing the warmth of the memories in that familiar feeling, but… it wasn’t quite the same. 

“Wow, it’s like holding my grandpa’s hand.” You joked through the tight lump in your throat. 

He laughed. “I think I’m old enough to be your great grandpa at this point.” 

“Oh my god, how old are you now? Like, two hundred?” 

“I stopped counting somewhere around one fifty.”

“That’s a lot of candles.”

Though it had now been danced around with your attempts to lighten the mood, the tension was still there. It always was. It was one of the things you could always count on about Steve, along with his unrelenting optimism and exhaustingly rigid moral compass. 

You shuffled closer, leaning your head gently on his now unfamiliar shoulders, fragile and small with age. He even smelled different. It was nothing you could place. It was simply age. It was the life he had lived, the one he was denied so many times.

You shuddered as one last sob racked its way through your body. 

“I love you, Steve. I- I always will… I always did.”

“I love you, too. I really do.” 

You let the tears run down your cheeks as you held onto him for what was likely the last time. The lake glistened and the breeze blew as you cried into his arms like you had so many times before. 

It wasn’t the ending you wanted, but it was what he’d deserved. And you’d be damned if your own selfishness got in the way of that. If anyone deserved their happy ending it was him.

**Author's Note:**

> hey guys, thank you so much for reading!
> 
> comments and kudos are so appreciated!


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